The present invention relates to a fuel cell vehicle, and in particular to a technique for estimating a possible running distance.
JP 2000-292195A published by the Japanese Patent Office in 2000 and JP 2001-231109A published by the Japanese Patent Office in 2001 disclose a fuel cell vehicle wherein a remaining fuel amount supplied to a fuel cell is detected, a possible running distance is displayed, and the driver is warned when the remaining fuel is low and the running distance is short.
However, in this related art, the vehicle""s possible running distance is estimated by considering the remaining fuel amount only, and the fuel amount required to restart the fuel cell system when the vehicle stops and the fuel cell system has stopped, is not considered. When the system has stopped, fuel is consumed to restart the fuel cell system, so the actual possible running distance is shorter than the estimated possible running distance. In particular, if the outside air temperature falls when the vehicle is stationary and it is necessary to warm up the fuel cell when the vehicle restarts, the actual possible running distance is even shorter than the estimated possible running distance.
It is therefore an object of this invention to precisely estimate a possible running distance of the fuel cell vehicle also taking account of restarting the vehicle, and to give the driver adequate warning of when fuel must be supplied.
In order to achieve above object, this invention provides a fuel cell vehicle, comprising a fuel cell system, a fuel tank which stores fuel supplied to the fuel cell system, and a controller which functions to predict a possible running distance of the vehicle based on an energy amount obtained by subtracting an energy required to start the fuel cell system, from an energy amount corresponding to a remaining fuel amount in the fuel tank.
According to an aspect of the invention, this invention provides a method for predicting a possible running distance of a fuel cell vehicle provided with a fuel cell system, comprising detecting a remaining fuel amount in a fuel tank which stores fuel supplied to the fuel cell system, and predicting a possible running distance of the vehicle based on an energy amount obtained by subtracting an energy amount required to start the fuel cell system, from an energy amount corresponding to the detected remaining fuel amount.
The details as well as other features and advantages of this invention are set forth in the remainder of the specification and are shown in the accompanying drawings.